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Film Consortium Urges ISPs To Dump Ineffective "Six Strikes" Policy For Pirates

Posted by samzenpus on from the pluggin-the-sieve dept.

An anonymous reader writes: The Internet Security Task Force, a group of businesses working to protect content creators and consumers from the negative effects of piracy, has called for an end to the Copyright Alert System, saying the anti-piracy initiative is not only ineffective but actually makes things worse. The group suggest that it be replaced with a new system based on Canada's Copyright Modernization Act. Mark Gill, ISTF chairman and President of member company Millennium films, says "We've always known the Copyright Alert System was ineffective, as it allows people to steal six movies from us before they get an educational leaflet. But now we have the data to prove that it's a sham." The Copyright Alert System (CAS) is set to expire early July.

5 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Wait, what? by xevioso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the article:

    "The incendiary acts behind the move appears to be the wide-spread pirating of 2014 action blockbuster The Expendables 3, about which Mark Gill comments that it “has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times, the CAS only allowed 0.3% of our infringement notices through to their customers. The other 99.7% of the time, the notices went in the trash"

    And how the hell would they know this? It's not like snail mail letters have GPS attached to them so the sender will know you have opened them. How do they have any idea at all in any way shape or form how often these letters were received, opened, read or followed? I smell a rat...

    1. Re:Wait, what? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 3, Interesting

      From the article:

      "The incendiary acts behind the move appears to be the wide-spread pirating of 2014 action blockbuster The Expendables 3, about which Mark Gill comments that it “has been illegally viewed more than 60 million times, the CAS only allowed 0.3% of our infringement notices through to their customers. The other 99.7% of the time, the notices went in the trash"

      And how the hell would they know this? It's not like snail mail letters have GPS attached to them so the sender will know you have opened them. How do they have any idea at all in any way shape or form how often these letters were received, opened, read or followed? I smell a rat...

      They use polls and extrapolate. After the notices were sent, they then "follow up" with a percentage of the notices sent out, to see if the intended recipient actually got/read them. The notice itself may also include a step the target is supposed to take that signals to someone that it was read and acted on.

      Either way, it's not going to be very accurate.

    2. Re:Wait, what? by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It's free, so why not. (or so current wisdom suggests)

      Unfortunately, this is why crap movies continue to get produced.
      [scene, studio boardroom] "Ex 3 was viewed 60+ million times. Yeah, most of them were illegal, but so what. Eyeballs !! Obviously, we need to make Ex 4!"

  2. No. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    File sharing can't drive those prices up. If piracy results in fewer people going to theaters, the reduction in demand will force prices down. If movie watching suddenly became more popular, prices would not go down, they would go up, especially when theaters are routinely sold out. That's how commerce actually works.

    The greatest harm file sharing could do is: reduce the expected ROI on major movies, which in turn results in fewer movies produced, and less money spent on the movies being made (which might reduce their quality). At the moment, the market is awash with more movies than anyone can watch, and the amount of money spent on some of them is ridiculous. So, I don't see that harmful consequence happening at all.

  3. Orwell by Livius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not a fan of the new trend of naming legislation by the opposite of its purpose.

    E.g. Copyright Modernization Act which is about implementing feudalism.